On April 11, 2018, the Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Andrei Iancu, delivered remarks at the United States Chamber of Commerce Patent Policy Conference, stating that the law surrounding patent subject matter eligibility (35 U.S.C. § 101) has resulted in “a more unpredictable patent landscape that is hurting innovation and, consequently, investment and job creation.” During these remarks, Director Iancu said the USPTO was “actively looking for ways.. Read More

There is a long-awaited clarification with regards to the question of whether a petitioner could appeal an adverse decision in an inter partes review (“IPR”) proceeding in the Patent Trials and Appeals Board (“PTAB”) to the Federal Circuit. There is a pending case at the Supreme Court, RPX Corp. v. ChanBond. The patent community is waiting to see whether the Supreme Court will grant certiorari in RPX Corp, which raises this exact question. In.. Read More

Clorox sells a product, “disinfecting wipes,” that boasts on its container, “Kills 99.9% of Viruses & Bacteria.” It’s a great product, and I use it every day. But it’s a good thing there’s plenty more bacteria around. Inventors have begun deferring to them for inspiration, and it turns out, bacteria just might provide the panacea for an array of genetic afflictions. Yes, I’m talking about “CRISPR,”[1] a class of adaptive anti-viral systems that.. Read More

On April 24, 2018, the Supreme Court of the United States, in a 7-2 majority, decided Oil States Energy Services v. Greene’s Energy Group, holding that Inter Partes Review (IPR) proceedings do not violate Article III or the Seventh Amendment. Article III vests the “judicial power of the United States” in the Article III courts. In holding that IPR does not violate Article III, the Court construed the grant of a patent as.. Read More

Gene editing was once quite difficult. Though it was not impossible to insert a new sequence of DNA into a bacterium and measure the effects, as recently as a decade ago, the process consumed unsustainably large amounts unlucky graduate students’ time and effort. In 2012, a groundbreaking paper from the group led by Dr. Jennifer Doudna at the University of California demonstrated that the bacterial immune protein CRISPR Cas-9 could revolutionize gene editing… Read More

Background of the Case: Sandoz Inc v. Amgen Inc., 137 S. Ct. 1664 (2017) is a case that involved statutory construction of the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act of 2009 (“BPCIA” or “Biosimilars Act”), which is codified in 42 U.S.C. § 262. The BPCIA is quite similar to the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984, also known as the Hatch-Waxman Amendments which created procedures to facilitate more.. Read More

The federal government has proved to be ineffective at bringing publically funded discoveries to the public. The Bayh-Dole Act of the 1980’s was intended to maximize the public’s return on federally funded research by getting inventions into the hands of companies to bring them to the market (for a general introduction). The goal was to maximize the public’s return on our investments by placing IP rights in the hands of Research institutions, who.. Read More

The video game industry is a rapidly growing market. The rising prize pools of video game tournaments and the popularity of streaming personalities are just a couple of the signs of this growth. Game revenues are expected to hit $108.9 billion in 2017, an increase of nearly $8 billion from 2016. That is a near eight percent increase, with smartphone and tablet gaming seeing a twenty percent increase. The global player base is.. Read More

By changing the word “art” to “process” in the 1952 Patent Act, Congress introduced one of the first changes to the statutory language of PSM since Thomas Jefferson penned the original in 1793. Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 447 U.S. 303 at 309 (1980). Since then, patent-eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101 has remained unaltered by Congress. However, over 200 years of judicial interpretation led to the development of specially created judicial.. Read More